2w ago

Chicken Of The Woods (Laetiporus)

I found this nice looking COTW while kayaking the other day growing on a downed tree in the middle of the river.

22 comments

Looks like Chicken Of The Pond to me.
- Isn't that just duck?
  
  damn my bad
- Definitely some water fowl. Maybe a water hen?
  
  Love that username.
- Does it distribute tiny swords?
  
  Strange fungus lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic mycology.
  
  Yes, until the tiny uprising it did
Does it taste like Chicken Of The fil-A?
- Yes, but without the homophobia.
- I was never fortunate enough to catch them in their prime, but according to a friend of mine "it all just tastes like mushroom to me."
  
  You have to cook it right, and season it right too! The quality of the mushroom makes a big difference as well (that one looks like a good one!)
  It's really quite remarkable when done right.
Just had a batch of this sprout on a tulip poplar stump from a tree cut down 3 years ago. It did not look as good as this photo and was not harvested.
The woods behind the house produce a lot of this, as well as the occasional morel- which locals call dryland fish. I suspect we also get the psychedelic kind, but their appearance is so close to deadly ones in this area; and I am not a gambler.
- Interesting, I've never heard of morels called dryland fish. I can see it from a taste perspective. We don't have a psychedelic mimic of the morel but we have what we call a beefsteak which is the Gyromitra esculenta.
  
  I was unclear- I didn’t mean a psychedelic version of morel.
  I meant the different mushroom species commonly used for such purposes.

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